


Ten Dollars

by footnoterphone



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M, deleted scenes from the chanith wedding, in the latest edition of "footnoterphone writes weird pairings for the internet"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-04-30
Packaged: 2018-03-26 10:52:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3848227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/footnoterphone/pseuds/footnoterphone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tanith texts Meryl: <em>Ten dollars says that he marries the next person he dates after like six months.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Ten Dollars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GreenFish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenFish/gifts).



> Happy birthday to my favorite crackship writer! I hope you enjoy the Ao3 debut of your favorite crack-OTP!

Meryl’s twenty eight before she does something truly salacious.  

And that’s... _really saying something_ , all things considered.  Meryl had dated Fedor, Arctic Edge’s resident manslut; she’d made out with Lysacek on at least one Stars on Ice tour.  Meryl had showmanced on _national television_ for _months_ , for no reason at all.  She’s not as buttoned up and tightly controlled as everyone thinks she is.   

So it’s telling, really, that the first time she does something salacious, it’s at the sweetest, most cliched wedding ever.  

Tanith is tanned, when she and Charlie get back from their honeymoon, her hair even lighter than it was before.  She got her extensions removed _in New Zealand_ (“I had planned to wait,” she says.  “But the longer hair kept getting caught in the snorkel masks!).  Charlie, on the other hand, looks about the same, just _red_ , burned uniformly down his face, neck and arms.  

When they get back, Tanith will sit cross-legged on the couch with a smile that looks just one breath away from squealing.  “So,” she’ll chirp, bouncing slightly, a laugh caught in her chest.  “Tell me _everything_.” 

“I…” Meryl will start, embarrassed, but still unable to bite back a smile.  “It’s really...there’s...nothing to…”

Over Tanith’s head, Meryl will see Charlie sitting at a kitchen bar stool, and sucking aggressively on a popsicle, even though May in Michigan is hardly popsicle weather.  He’s aggressively pretending to read a magazine, but he slightly undermines the effect by biting his tongue at any sign of gossip, and also never turning the magazine pages.  

“Ok, wellllll,” Tanith will say, expectantly, dragging the last syllable out and failing to strain her laughter, after all.  “At least tell me when it started.”

And Meryl will knead her lips together, and whisper, her own tiny, breathless nervous giggle escaping.  “I guess it started at your wedding.”

If anyone asks, it started at the wedding, and maybe it did, but it’s actually the second time Meryl and Ben have made out.  

They’ll tell the story so many times that it settles into a well-worn tag team routine, and it’ll always start somewhere else, but when Meryl remembers the story, she remembers: a night in Tokyo, colder than she expected but worlds warmer than home.  She remembers: a fourth cocktail, ill-advised before a day of rehearsals and meet and greets.  

“You’ll aaalllwaaaaays be my ice princess,” cooed Tanith, reaching actually over the table to ruffle Charlie’s hair.  “Alllwaaayssss.”  

Charlie pouted theatrically in his seat before pushing himself up towards her, meeting her halfway, cooing “And you’ll always be my beautiful flower.”  

They kissed over the table, the romance of which is dampened only by Ben making an over the top gagging noise and Charlie, in his rush to silence Ben, upended not only his own glass of wine, but also Tanith’s.  

“Um,” said the waitress, amidst their attendant squeals.  “Is this bad time?”  She was holding Ben’s birthday cake and looking at them like they were children, like she _so vastly regretted_ letting the noisy Americans reserve the whole top room.  Technically, Satoko had reserved it.  Technically, Meryl doubted that mattered to the much-aggrieved waitress, who set Ben’s birthday cake down like it might explode, and skittered away as Charlie made a huge show of reaching over the table, again, to dab his wine off of Tanith while Ben made still more gagging noises.  

Meryl would do this tour forever, if she could.  The rest of the cast gathered around them to sing Ben an off-key, screechy “happy birthday,” and Meryl thought, _this is what found family feels like_.  It was hard not to fall in love with Kimmy’s smile and Patrick’s over the top _everything_ and being around Ryan all the time stopped being terrible years ago.  Charlie and Tanith were still, more often than not, the cheesiest couple in existence, but she got that at home.  

Later, the drinks were flowing and it was easy, good.  They were drunk and sloppy and she was having fun like she never did when they tried to go out to a club, and Ben looked the same, lapping up all the attention with easy good humor.  Charlie and Tanith had descended into teenage flirting that was a shade above _no, you hang up first_ earlier than usual, and then they had left, and then suddenly, for a moment, it had just been Meryl and Ben, the drunken remains of Ben's party swirling around them.  

"Do you think they're happier than other people?" Ben had asked.  She thought he meant to sound serious, but his tongue was thick with alcohol and exhaustion and his pint glass slipped dangerously in his hand.  The edge of his glass slammed against the bar, and he laughed, but his eyes still lingered where Charlie and Tanith had pawed each other like giggly, horny teenagers.  

"What'd you..." Meryl had stumbled, sleepily.  "What'd you mean?"  

Ben shrugged.  "I don't know," he said, finally.  "I've been with Merrie for years, you know?  And we've never been--" he nodded after Charlie and Tanith-- "Like _that_."  

Ben's hand slipped out of his lap, and she couldn't tell if it was drunken intent or just drunken reflexes, but it slipped along the exposed skin of her thigh, just skimming her tiny leather skirt.  He was with Merrie, and he was _happy_ , and she was _whatever_ she was with Fedor, but she was just drunk enough and jealous enough to giggle, and press her thigh further against his.  

Ben didn't move his hand, anyway.  "I don't know," Meryl said finally.  "I don't think it's just about their _relationship_ , though."  She shrugged, and she hated herself for feeling every microscopic shift of her bare shoulder against his shirt.  "I just don't think I'm built to be that kind of happy."

She meant to say more, but all she can remember, later, is Ben’s hand, slowly working its way up her thigh the entire conversation.  

They had left with plausible deniability in tact, but she had still kissed him, drunk and stupid, against the outside brick wall of the bar.  

 "What about Merrie?" She had panted between hot, sour kisses.  

"I don't know," he mumbled, trailing kisses against her jaw.  "I don't really care.  Isn't that kind of the point?"

Meryl hadn't drunkenly made out with someone since college; she had forgotten the heady rush of messy, urgent first kisses.  Her heart dropped in her chest at the feeling of Ben's hand creeping slowly against her stomach, fumbling at her breasts.  He had pressed her into her hotel room door for one final, desperate kiss goodnight.  When their eyes met, she had almost thought she could invite him in, but he looked down, and the moment passed, and they agreed, the next day, never to speak of it again.

Three days later, Tanith had texted her, "Ben and Merrie broke up!!!  I do not know how to process this."  Meryl had shifted her phone between her hands, considering her response, when Tanith had texted again: "I always thought it was weird he never talked about marrying her.  Ten dollars says that he marries the next person he dates after like six months."

Meryl spent the rest of the tour dwelling on this, chewing on her words every time she’s around Ben, too careful to avoid being alone with him, watching him like a hawk for any signs of change.  Sometimes he met her eyes across the rink, and she felt like he was almost saying _maybe_.  

Sometimes she felt almost like she wanted to say _maybe_ too.  

Instead, she hemmed and hawed and looked away when Ben met her eyes.   She broke up with Fedor later, anyway--not because of Ben, and not that she’d call what they were doing _dating_ , in any case--and she thinks it again, _maybe_ , but instead she stays up late with Tanith, drinking minibar wine and listening to Tanith’s sweet, if ham-handed, attempts to comfort her.  

“I’m not upset,” Meryl insisted, her hand swinging wide and knocking against Tainth.  “I’m not…”  Meryl had sighed, frustrated, wine-drunk and weak against the headboard of Charlie and Tanith’s hotel bed.  “I’m honestly relieved,” Meryl added, quietly.  “That I don’t have to…” 

Intellectually, Meryl knew that this was Fort Myers, that it would be Anaheim next, then wending their way up the coast, San Jose and Seattle.  Intellectually, Meryl knew that she wasn’t a sea captain and couldn’t navigate by the stars, but there was still always something unnerving to her, looking up and knowing she was seeing the wrong sky.  The sky was starless and black, but the Fort Myers city lights glowed bright before them, pinning back the sky.  “Everything is different now,” she added, almost absently.  

“You know,” Tanith said, unexpectedly.  “Ben said the same thing, when he told me he broke up with Merrie.  He said, ‘it’s a relief, not having to pretend to be someone I stopped being years ago.’”  

Meryl had swallowed, hard, and for a moment, had been unwilling to meet Tanith’s eyes.  Tanith, for her part, drew herself up short and fixed Meryl with an oddly specific, keen look, then drew the comforter up around her knees.  “Let’s rent a cheesy girly movie On Demand,” she whispered conspiratorially.  

When Charlie came back it was midnight, and he was carrying a half-empty six pack.  He snickered when Meryl blinked herself awake at the sound of the closing door.  

“So you guys had a wild night, huh?”  He rolled his eyes as he watched Meryl surveying the cliched carnage that she and Tanith had wrought: _Love, Actually_ was still blaring in the background, and Tanith was passed out next to her, curled in a ball against the headboard.  There was a mostly-empty family sized bag of cheese puffs between them and telltale orange smudges all over white comforter and at the sleeves of Meryl’s cream colored sweater.  Their empty minibar bottles--Chardonnay and White Zin, because they are classy ladies--had pooled at the foot of the bed, and Charlie delicately swept them away before perching at the end of the bed.  

Meryl tried to say something, but all that came out was a groan, and she flopped back against the bed.  “I’ll leave,” she mumbled.  “Just give me a minute.” 

“Don’t worry about it,” Charlie laughed.  “I’ll just--” and he popped up, scooping Tanith up and depositing her, gently, into the second bed.  “You can...stay, in your cheese-stained mess.”  

He plopped down again, closer to her this time.  “Seriously, though.”  He didn’t finish the thought, though, and the two of them just sat there in silence for a little.  

“How was your night?” she asked finally.

“Oh, it was fine,” Charlie sighed, breezily.  He scooted himself to where Tanith had been, moments ago, and noisy stole a cheese puff.  “I just hung out with Ryan and Ben.”  Charlie shrugged.  “I don’t think Ben knows how to be happy without trying to be someone he’s not.”  

They lapsed into silence again.  

“Seriously though,” Charlie said again.  “You’re ok?”

Meryl wondered if maybe she didn’t know how to be happy without pretending either.  

“Yeah,” Meryl sighs, curling into her pillow.  “Yeah, I’m ok.”  

\---

There's a special kind of exhaustion that goes along with your best friend getting married, Meryl's learned, and she's stuck hopelessly to Ben's side at Charlie and Tanith’s wedding, alternately digging fingernails into each other's thighs as they fight _not to cry_ during an incredibly soppy set of parent toasts.  

Today is special, and Charlie and Tanith are _so special_ , and at some point, she mentions to Ben that she hasn't slept or eaten properly all week.  

"Neither have I," he laughs ruefully.  His voice is rumbly and comforting.  Despite herself, she actually cracks a smile.  

"You know," she laughs.  "Tanith and Charlie aren't freaking out at all."  

Ben just shrugs, and his smile is a little _too_ understanding when he responds, "We've always been their sponges, Meryl."  When she crinkles her nose, confused, he adds, "Absorbing their anxiety, I mean." 

Meryl looks at him skeptically, and Ben just adds shrugs, a wry, one-sided smile.  “I don’t think that anyone gets to be that happy all the time without someone to be their foil.”

Charlie and Tanith invite couples onto the floor to join them, after their first dance, first their parents, then Charlie's niece and nephew, who escort DJ and Finn, and finally the wedding party.  

Ben holds out his hand.  “C’mon,” he says, jerking his head towards the dance floor.  “If not me, you’ll end up dancing with Evan Bates, and you _know_ he’s trolling for a wedding hook up.”

 Meryl spends most of her dance with Ben making faces at Charlie's sisters, all of whom look as though they’re vastly regretting agreeing to be bridesmaids, and studiously avoiding eye contact with Fedor or Marina.  

Near the end of the song, Ben's voice rumbles to life in her ear.  "I always imagined Merrie and I would have our wedding in a field."  

It takes actual effort for Meryl pries her head off of his chest.  She meets his eyes, but he's already shaking his head, soft and indulgent.  "No, I didn't mean--" he says, not so much sad as reverent.  "I don't miss her."  He cups the base of Meryl's head, guiding it back into his chest.  "I just remember being like _that_ ," he adds, finally, jerking his head towards Charlie and Tanith.  "All soppy and vulnerable."  

"I might be jealous," Meryl rasps, after another long silence.  "I don't think I ever have."  Her voice is reflective, reverent as she eyes the couple from her spot against Ben’s chest.

They lock eyes once more, when the music ends.  She feels almost like he might be saying _maybe_ , one last time, and almost like she might be able to say _maybe_ back. 

Instead, she laces her fingers through his and leads them back to their seats.   

Later, Ben and Meryl do their own set of tag team "roasts"--Meryl had written out a long, sappy toast, but she couldn't read it to Ben without bursting into tears--and then there's one glass of champagne, and then another, and then she's drunkenly trying to convince him to make funny faces in the photo booth with her.  She can see Jeremy over Ben's shoulder, leaning back against the bar.  He's smiling crookedly at Evan Lysacek, that same 2010 Nationals after party smirk, the one that screams "I could have you if I wanted."  

Evan is less orange and less gelled than usual, and Ben flicks his head over his shoulder, following her gaze.  His lips brush against Meryl's ear when he whispers, "Ten dollars says that they make out before the reception is over."  

Meryl tugs the corner of her lip between her teeth, then cants herself up on her toes to whisper in Ben's ear.  She's drunk enough that she almost crashes into him--he grabs her arm to steady her, and her hand slips dangerously low on his hip--but she's careful to hover her lips _just_ far enough away from his face when she whispers, "Ten dollars says they're making out when we get out of the photo booth."  

It comes out a little more sultry than she means it, and she giggles nervously on the end, her eyes flitting in and out of eye contact.  Something odd and almost serious flickers in Ben's eyes, but it's so quick that later, she thinks she imagined it.  In any case, that odd little flicker is replaced quickly by a familiar--if maybe a _shade_ too practiced--smile.  Ben spins her around, and pulls her into his lap in the photo booth.  

There's an extended, tense moment, her arms around his neck, his hand frozen in tucking a stray strand of her hair back, before Meryl leans in and ghosts her lips against his.  

It’s...really stupid.  It’s really, _really_ stupid, because Ben still lives in Arizona, and she still lives in Michigan, and she still wants to.  It’s really stupid, because: Meryl isn’t known for making the greatest personal decisions, under stress, and she wants more from this, for Ben, for her, than stolen kisses and a slow, inevitable implosion.  It’s really stupid, because: for one horrible, hanging second, nothing happens and, unbidden, Meryl remembers that _he hasn't been single in over a decade._  It's agonizingly awkward, and so _not_ her, kissing a good friend for no reason (except it is her, and she's kissed Ben before, but all of that escapes her, in the moment), but she drags the moment out.  Ben's radiating heat, under her, and his lips are soft, and pink, and hell, Meryl could do this all night.  

The first of four timed shutters snaps closed and open again, and suddenly, everything changes; suddenly Ben arches to life beneath her, sliding both hands into her hair, hard enough that it would have fallen down if it hadn't been shellacked in place, pressing his mouth into hers, so hard it would probably have hurt if she hadn't been so drunk.  No one's ever kissed her this way, sucking and desperate, needy and affirming and fucking filthy.  No one's ever kissed her like this, like it doesn't matter if it's attractive, like it doesn't matter who knows.  She can feel her lipstick slide against his lips, she can hear, dimly, the roar of the party, the snap of the camera shutter, but she still keeps kissing him until she literally can't breathe.

Meryl presses her forehead against Ben's when she surfaces, gasping for air.  "God,” she half-laughs.  “We're such cliches."

Ben laughs too.  It still sits at the back of his throat, rumbly and comforting.  "Well, it is the Belbin-White wedding," he chuckles.  "No cliche left unturned."

Meryl lifts her hand and starts to delicately wipe her pink lipstick from Ben’s face.  His smile blooms, unbidden, under her thumb, and it makes her feel oddly powerful and oddly safe.  “It’s not... _every_ cliche,” she says carefully.  “I think we’d have to be the Maid of Honor and Best Man for it to be _every_ cliche.”  

She tries hard to keep her voice light and level, but she thinks Ben probably catches all the hidden meanings in her words, anyway.  

“How did you get out of being in the wedding party, anyway?” Meryl asks instead, determinately casual.  

Ben shrugs, and his whole body shifts against hers.  “I just texted her back when she texted me and was like, ‘hey, I’m happy for you, but under no circumstances will I be in your wedding.’”  He shudders comically.  “Besides,” he adds, more thoughtfully, the same careful tone creeping in.  “I think my mother would kill me if were in a wedding that wasn’t my own, at this point.”  

Ben drops his head, but he still runs his hand over her lipstick-stained fingers.  “How did you get out of being Maid of Honor?” Ben says, his voice still careful and controlled.  

Meryl knows her smile is too tight, too transparent, when she says, barely opening her mouth, “I didn’t have to.”  

Ben looks like he can’t decide if he’s supposed to offer sympathy or praise.  “I think they thought it was cruel,” Meryl adds, finally. “I had just broken up with Fedor, then, and I guess...they didn’t want to rub salt in the wound?”

Meryl shrugs, and Ben smiled wanly, like he maybe understands a little too well.   

When they finally slink out, Ben palms their instant, guilty evidence and slides it into his breast pocket.  All around them, the world keeps spinning, the din of the party rises, and it feels odd to Meryl that everything could be the same, and yet everything is different.  Ben slides his hand into hers and she squeezes back, but she can't think of a single thing to say.  

"I guess you're right," he says, finally, and she follows the nod of his head to Jeremy and Evan, also holding hands, sneaking off to some dark corner to keep smirking at each other.  

"Yeah," she mumbles absently, tightening her grip on his hand.  "I guess you owe me ten dollars."  

 

 

 


End file.
